Telegraph Letter

The national minimum wage is £10.42 per hour. Based on a 37.5 hour week, that is an annual salary of £20,319. After tax in the current year they would take home £17,839.

Someone on £130k per annum after tax takes home £76,549.

So the correct figure is every 12 weeks, not every 6. Except it isn't. The person on £20k also benefits from state benefits such as universal credit and child benefit from which the higher paid worker is excluded.

For a single parent on minimum wage with 2 children paying rent of £1k per month, they'd receive around an additional £19,082 in a combination of universal credit (£327 per week) and child benefit (£39 per week).

So actual income is £76,549 for the high paid worker and £36,921.

So actually - they take home the same as a minimum wage worker does annually roughly every 25 weeks. You're miles off.

 

They have a partner too on over 50k a week. You've decided that the minimum wage person I referred to had two kids? Magic. I said they earn, not they take home. Them and their partner get gross pay that equals a minimum wage earners entire yearly salary every six week.

 

Hmm, not the point I was trying to make and certainly not moaning about my lot. Think the article was more about the perception of certain wages making someone wealthy, when the reality is you have to live in and around London to make those wages and the cost of living is huge.

Understand London is very much a bubble and the reality is extremely different elsewhere in the country. I do agree with some sentiments in the article, albeit sending your kid to a £15k a year school you can't afford, then complaining you can't afford it is beyond daft.

Finally, no point comparing other industry's to factory workers. I worked nightshifts in a factory once, so not knocking it, but I've spent years building up my skillset since and my worth to my company is very different now.

 

But gross earnings are a pointless measure to use. As i've shown.

 

Just to clarify I was talking about the person in the article not you when I replied to you as you didn't seem to be moaning like they were.

 

Righto. You're bang right. The poor struggling £180k a year couple with their £1.3m house and kids in private schools. You're spot on, they deserve sympathy, they're practically on the breadline.

My point is simple. They're on an absolute fortune living a very ******* privileged lifestyle and yet they're bitching to the media. Shut the **** up and realise how privileged you are.

 

That's not what i said though is it. This is like Covid again, people arguing against points i've not made.

I'm simply pointing out that your 6 week statement is a long way off being relevant.

 

As a working man earning just over 50k per year I have to pay more tax than a couple each earning 25k. The system is not fit for purpose and inherently unfair, and I still can’t afford to buy a 250k house.

 

So you think if you are in a couple you should only get one tax allowance? Of course two people earning half your gross each would pay less tax than you. Each individual gets an allowance that isn’t taxed and that is fair, surely? Do you disagree with that?

What point are you making here?

 

People tend live to their means. I earn a decent wage, but between childcare, mortgage, living expenses utilities etc. my disposable income/savings isn't massive. But I wouldn't dream of moaning about it because so many people have it so much ******* worse and I could always downsize if I felt properly squeezed. So many people don't have that option and are living with their backs to the wall.

 

I guess the point I am making is that if you choose to have a single earner and a homemaker, you pay more tax than if you have two people working, even though the “household” income is the same.

 

Well if the article wer done as a wind up....it worked

 

Great quote, and I agree with you. I suspect the person quoted in the article has read Paul Johnson's excellent new book 'Follow The Money', which explains the financial workings of our economy, and highlights what is wrong with it. Paul refers to wealth in general, and not just inherited wealth - although the two often coincide. Our tax system is a mess. New chancellors coming in frequently say they will simplify it, but like new head coaches coming to a club and claiming "I will make the players fitter" the promise is seldom delivered. And it never will be while it's complexity provides cover for people to lawfully evade it.

 

Yeah but, they could always do what one numpty Conservative PM suggested (think it was John Major)....
"When your back is to the wall, you turn round?? and come out fighting"."

 

Maybe they should do what several Tory MPs have told the low paid to do and get a second or even third job or budget better and maybe send little Jonny or Jessie to the local state school instead of the fee paying one. Other than that I'm sure their local Waitrose will have a bin round the back that they can go bin dipping in. No doubt they voted Tory and will continue to so I say **** em

 

In London and every other decent sized city the Tories don't win. They also don't win with people educated beyond degree level.

If only people with degrees voted in the last election it would have been a Labour landslide.

 

Child benefit isn't means tested so both families would receive it.

What if you compared the take home pay of both mothers if the second family were a couple both earning minimum wage and had a mortgage?

 

Me and my wife earn good money but there's not much left at the end of the month.

However and it's a big however, and I'm pretty sure the Telegraph couple are just the same..

We have nice cars, we have a good takeaway every Friday, I spend what I want on games, books, TV subscriptions etc etc.

Sure I shop at Asda and I but the offers but that's just a hangover from growing up with frugal parents.

I put money into a savings ISA automatically at the start of the month so I have a nest egg that's accessible.

We are not struggling and neither are those Telegraph folk, but... it's interesting to see that they feel they are struggling, certainly they don't feel they are thriving and that bodes well for the next election.

They'll probably vote Tory, but maybe they and many others won't. The Blue wall is crumbling.

 

Child Benefit is not means tested. However, anyone earning over £50k and receiving child benefit would be hit with the High Income Child Benefit Charge on their taxes - so would pay more tax to recover the child benefit.

 

If only people under 50 voted, it would also have been a Labour landslide - latest polls show Tory support around 10% in the U-40s and barely rising to 20% in the U-50s.